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Skied the cone on the 25th with intentions of skiing chromozone west. We reached the top of the cone to the beginning of the traverse under the upper cliffs of Cheops into the chute and decided that the hand shears we were producing were too easily sheared 35cm down to do a traverse over a thin snowpack area. It also didn't help that spindrifts were starting to come down due to the light snow. The ski down the cone was on fantastic moderate density dry snow.

The Ursus trees today was one of our worst days of the season. Snow was great above 1800m but the 20-25cm of storm snow was just too unstable to enjoy that area. Most of the small avy paths past the grizzly path had cleared their hst. A small portion of the Christmas trees had even cleared their hst. Another group was in the area with us. We separated ways at the top with the other group dropping the southwest side of ursus trees and my group dropping the ridge into the southeast side. We contemplated dropping a small 50m open slope that normally holds a set of small fun pillows on it and concluded that the slides were small enough that they wouldn't go anywhere on that slope. I dropped first and popped a slow moving slab that was sluff size. Another friend dropped with similar results. The third friend dropped a little further down where the slope is about 10-20m longer and popped a slab that was less friendly. That one put him on his bum and continued downhill over 20 degree terrain for another 150-200m. Wouldn't have been consequential if he had gone with it due to the size of the slide but one does not wish to be in that position. Poking the dragon on slightly larger terrain was not a smart move on our part. For the rest of the run we ski cut our way through the trees and headed her home. In retrospect I probably should have recognized the foreboding nature of the small slide coming out of the christmas trees as a sign that today was not a day to be in open terrain. Even small open slopes.The other group in the area reported triggering similar size slides as us on the sw slope.

Last photo is of a crown in frequent flier that i snapped on the way out.

"As we all know, the true driving force behind every early morning wake up is not necessarily safety, but the overpowering drive to be sitting on a patio by 1 pm, intoxicated, and spraying loudly about the morning's adventure."